More Support For The iPhone Nano? Or Mac Netbook?

July’s quarterly financial results call from Apple had the CFO Peter Oppenheimer warning of a drop in gross margins before the end of September due to a new unamed product:

[from AppleInsider | Apple plans mystery “product transition” before September’s end by Aidan Malley]

During his quarterly financial results call, Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company will make a key “product transition” that cuts back on its profit margins to help shut out rivals.

A frequent point of discussion during the hour-long call, the mystery transition will drop Apple’s gross margins from 34.8 percent in the spring quarter to just 31.5 percent in the July-to-September window in which the update takes place, ultimately settling at about 30 percent during Apple’s fiscal 2009.

I am betting on the iPhone Nano, although personally I would rather see a subnotebook, or ‘netbook’ as many are calling them.

UBS Investment Research analysyt Maynard Um opines that the netbook originally planned for the end of 2008 has slipped into 2009, so perhaps that was the unnamed product responsible for the projected margin hit?